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Excellence celebrated as student achievements shine at EDSA Prestige Awards

29 October 2025 | Story Tshepo Tsotetsi | Photo Kaleidoscope Studios

The Division of Student Affairs at the University of the Free State (UFS) brought together students, staff, and senior management on Friday 24 October 2025 for the fourth edition of the Executive Director: Student Affairs (EDSA) Prestige Awards – an evening dedicated to recognising students whose leadership, creativity, and commitment are shaping a more inclusive university.

Held at the Bloemfontein Campus, the ceremony honoured outstanding students across all three campuses who have excelled through academic performance, community engagement, and innovation. From sport and residence life to student governance, counselling, health and wellness, social support, and the Centre for Universal Access and Disability Support, each award reflected the depth of student impact within the university community.

A night that belonged to students

Dr Temba Hlasho, Executive Director of Student Affairs, said the awards serve as a reminder of the values that underpin the UFS journey toward Vision 130. “By recognising and rewarding excellence,” he said, “we reinforce the culture of achievement and innovation that drives our students.”

He congratulated the winners for their perseverance, describing them as “dreamers who never give up” – borrowing the words of Nelson Mandela – and encouraged them to remain ambassadors of the university’s spirit of excellence.

Guest speaker Prof Noluxolo Gcaza, Associate Professor from Nelson Mandela University, reflected on the meaning of excellence in her keynote address. “Excellence is a way of being,” she said. “It’s not about recognition at the end – it’s the fruit of your quiet perseverance. Whether your name is called or not, your contribution adds to the living story of this university.”

The highlight of the evening was the announcement of the EDSA Student of the Year, celebrating students who embody global citizenship, academic distinction, leadership, and community engagement.

Jane Mpholo-Mehlape, an Honours in Drama and Theatre Arts student specialising in Theatre for Young Audiences and Directing, earned the top honour. A multi-award-winning theatre-maker, filmmaker, and social entrepreneur, she uses the performing arts to confront social issues, create employment, and mentor young people.

“It feels surreal,” she said after receiving her award. “For years I’ve poured everything into my work, so this recognition affirms that what I’m doing matters… that we are seen.”

Coming from the performing arts, she added, the recognition carries special weight. “People often see performance as just entertainment,” she said. “But art can give people voices and opportunities. This award recognises leadership, transformation, and community – and those are everything that I am.”

Joining her were Thabang Mahlangu, a Human Resource Management student and member of the Shimlas rugby team, who received the first runner-up honours for his contributions to sport, leadership, and community engagement, and Mbalenhle Thungo, a Bachelor of Administration student from the Qwaqwa Campus, who was named second runner-up. Thungo is an entrepreneurial student leader serving as the Deputy Chairperson of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences Student Council.

Together, the winners represent the diverse ways in which UFS students continue to demonstrate excellence: not as a goal, but as a way of being that reflects the heart of the institution.

News Archive

Prof Antjie Krog speaks on verbalising revulsion and the collusion of men

2015-06-26

From the left are Prof Lucius Botes, UFS: Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities; Prof Helene Strauss, UFS: Department of English; Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, UFS: Trauma, Forgiveness and Reconciliation Studies; Prof Antjie Krog, UCT: Department Afrikaans and Dutch; Dr Buhle Zuma, UCT: Department of Psychology. Both Prof Strauss and Dr Zuma are partners in the Mellon Foundation research project.

“This is one of the bitterest moments I have ever endured. I would rather see my daughter carried away as a corpse than see her raped like this.”

This is one of 32 testimonies that were locked away quietly in 1902. These documents, part of the NC Havenga collection, contain the testimonies of Afrikaner women describing their experiences of sexual assault and rape at the hands of British soldiers during the South African War.

This cluster of affidavits formed the foundation of a public lecture that Prof Antjie Krog delivered at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Bloemfontein Campus on Tuesday 23 June 2015. The lecture, entitled ‘They Couldn’t Achieve their Goal with Me: Narrating Rape during the South African War’, was the third instalment in the Vice-Chancellor’s Lecture Series on Trauma, Memory, and Representations of the Past. The series is hosted by Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Senior Research Professor in Trauma, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation Studies at the UFS, as part of a five-year research project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Verbalising revulsion

The testimonies were taken down during the last two months of the war, and “some of the women still had marks and bruises on their bodies as evidence,” Prof Krog said. The victims’ words, on the other hand, struggled to express the story their bodies told.

What are the nouns for that which one sees? What words are permissible in front of men? How does one process revulsion verbally? These are the barriers the victims – raised with Victorian reserve – faced while trying to express their trauma, Prof Krog explained.

The collusion of men

When the war ended, there was a massive drive to reconcile the Boers and the British. “Within this process of letting bygones be bygones,” Prof Krog said, “affidavits of severe violations by white men had no place. Through the collusion of men, prioritising reconciliation between two white male hierarchies, these affidavits were shelved, and, finally, had to suffer an embargo.”

“It is only when South Africa accepted a constitution based on equality and safety from violence,” Prof Krog said, “that the various levels of deeply-rooted brutality, violence, and devastation of men against the vulnerable in society seemed to burst like an evil boil into the open, leaving South African aghast in its toxic suppurations. As if, for many decades, we did not know it was there and multiplied.”

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